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Tuesday, July 24, 2012

I can't believe it's over! This is book 24 (which I forgot to put in the picture but I was concentrating on making sure we got a picture before she started eating!). This has been a great reading adventure with you! Thank you for joining us!

I knew when I first read this book that I wanted it to be the final book in our Read with Me! Adventure. It talks about sharing with others. I hope that I have been able to share some language development activities with you over the past 9 weeks. Now, I wanted to give my daughter the opportunity to share something with others. We decided on the same chocolate chip cookies as in the book (with a few sprinkle cookies, too) and which neighbors we would share them with. This involved quite a bit of planning: ingredients needed, how many people in each home, how to package them to give them away, and when to deliver them...not to mention following the recipe directions!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See by Bill Martin, Jr. (Pictures by Eric Carle)

This book and the others in the same line (like Baby Bear, Baby Bear What Do You See and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear) are some of our favorites. When we have one checked out of the library, we read it so often that she doesn't even need me to read it, she knows what's coming up next before I turn the page. If you read the other "What do you see?" books there are some great action words like slipping, gliding, climbing, flying and strutting. It's fun to try to do those actions while pretending to be the animal!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

It was hard to get this book opened...all she wanted to do was look at and talk about the flowers on the cover! I have to say, while reading it I wanted to jump up and look through my seed stash to see which seeds I can plant next! She kind of led the way in our language skill last night. She asked a lot of questions! So, I in turn asked her a variety of questions. What's that? What color is it? Where is the bulb? Which one do you like best? When do we plant? Harvest? There are lots of questions to be asked and answered!

Other language skills are:

Colors: Wow! This book is full of colors and while this would not be the best book to work on using a specific color, it would be a great introduction to colors book or a great review book! When talking about the colors don't forget the brown dirt!

Seasons: The story starts off talking about "every year." If you haven't talked about seasons in the year, this would be a good time to start :) The child in the story talks about what they do in the fall, winter and spring and how they get to enjoy the flowers all summer! And just like the seasons, the story ends with "we know we can grow our rainbow again next year." I would draw pictures of each season with pictures of what gardening activity they did. Or for a super fun (and long activity) take pictures of your family planting a rainbow and doing all of the necessary gardening activities to make your own book!

If you want a few more activities that go along with Planting a Rainbow, check out my pinterest page.

If you'd like to own it for yourself, here is a link to Amazon or go check out your local library!

This book was nostalgic for my husband, so it was fun watching him remember reading it as a child while my daughter was hearing it for the first time. At first I was nervous that the simple pictures and abstract concept (of drawing an adventure that was "actually" happening) would be boring for her. However, she loved it! I started out reading and asking questions as we always do and the first question I asked was "What did he draw?" She said "a moon" - which was a correct answer, but gave me the inspiration to start working on irregular past tense verbs. We have been talking about irregular past tense verbs (where you don't add the -ed to the end of the verb) around our house a lot recently. We have been talking about throw/threw, cut/cut (not cutted!), drink/drank and eat/ate. So, as we read this story we used the word "drew." He drew a moon.

Friday, July 13, 2012

This book was the perfect excuse to enjoy a cookie with our evening milk (or in my daughter's case, soy milk). This story is very cute. Actually the whole series of If You Give a... books are wonderful! My favorite part of this book is how it reflects the sequence of events that happen in our daily life. Everyday we go through the same steps of getting milk, getting a straw, getting a napkin, wiping our mouths. We deviate slightly from the story in that she does not get a cookie very often and she does not end up giving herself a haircut when she checks her face for crumbs! But the concept is the same and made me smile as I read it :)

Thursday, July 12, 2012

We read this story, but I think the concept of a girl growing antlers threw her off at the beginning. We tried to talk about how silly that was and briefly talked about what can really happen and what is pretend (like my daughter isn't really a princess even though she loves to dress up like one). I felt like I had to over emphasize the silliness for the whole story. I think this story is a little too advanced for her, but only a little. I think that children 4 and up would really love this story.

The concept of reality vs. pretend is a very important concept so I am glad that we were able to talk about it. Other language concepts that can be addressed in this story are:

Monday, July 9, 2012

When I told my daughter what book we were reading tonight she was very excited! We have read this story many times in the past. Usually it ends up being a story we read every night for a week or two then we take a break! So we'll see if we end up reading it again tomorrow!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

This was the first time that my daughter had heard this book. She was enthralled! She could hardly answer the questions that I asked as we read! Recently at our house we have been talking about making good choices and not opening the door for strangers and safety concerns. So when at the beginning of the story the cat comes walking in, we had a brief discussion on whether or not they should have allowed it. We also discussed whether or not the "games" that he played were good. She thought they were good choices...we obviously need to keep working on that skill!

Thursday, July 5, 2012

I was so excited when this book was on the best books for kids book lists that I used when I compiled the list of books to read for the Read with Me adventure! I remember reading this story as a child. And isn't that the best part of reading with our kids - letting them experience our favorite childhood memories and adventures?!

We love this story and have for quite sometime! We talk about different things each time we read this story. When we first started reading this story my daughter was quite young and we focused on the vocabulary in the story, from pointing to objects in the pictures to discussing the meaning of words like "mattress"and "escalator."

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

At first I was a little nervous that the Troll would scare my daughter (since there are many things that scare her right now...it's a phase, I hope). But she thought he was quite funny so I guess my worries for nothing! We especially loved that they are "Billy" goats since my husband's name is Billy.

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About Me

I am a certified Speech Language Pathologist and a mom.
I partner with families and provide tools, tips and techniques to help their child improve communication.
I have been serving students with special needs for more than 12 years. My passion for communication really lies in working with parents, teachers, caregivers and others who are interacting with typically developing children to children who have communication needs. I love to teach and share, to bounce ideas off of others, to learn from parents what makes their child shine and go from there. I hope to share some things that will inspire you as you work with, play with, grow with your child.